These intervals of brightness, then, are the true seasons for labour. These earnests of the morning should be prized as oppor- tunities specially afforded us by God for strenuous labour. If thus laid out, how blessed will they be found ! They are brief, for tribulation is our lot on earth, not ease ; but this should only arouse to new vigour ; for if they be thus brief, we have no moments to idle away.
But it is here that so many stumble. In trial they call upon the Lord and vow their life to him. Through evil report and good they will follow him ; on the rough way or the smooth they will walk with him ; by labour, by sacrifice, by watchfulness, by costly gifts, they will prove their love, and zeal, and constancy ! Good words and sin- cerely spoken ! But so were the words of the disciple, " If I should die with thee, I
THESE EARNESTS. 57
will not deny thee in any wise." He spoke what he truly felt, but when the hour came, the resolution was not to be found. So with us. Trial calls forth many a high thought and prompts to noble purposes. Yet how seldom do these thoughts ripen ; how often do these pur- poses die ! Peace returns, sunshine bright- ens over us, our broken strength knits again, and we sink back into sloth ! The calm hour for which we longed, that we might do something for God, has come, but it finds us nearly as heedless and selfish as before we entered into the storm.
This must not be. Why were we smit- ten, but just that we might be stirred up ? And why were we delivered, but just that we might work more strenuously, more efficaciously ? How sad, then, that both the trial and the enlargement should fail of their purposed end !
These times of enlargement are times of light and gladness. In these mornings
58 THE USE OF THESE EARNESTS.
joy has come to us. It is not the mere reaction from sorrow; it is not mere familiarity with suffering; it is not oblivion of the past; it is not the calm of over-spent feeling. It is joy from the Lord. And te the joy of the Lord is our strength." He who gave us the night has given us also the morning. He who called up the storm has brought back the calm. So that it is his joy in which we rejoice ; and this joy is our strength. Let not this strength lie idle. The calm will not last ; the clouds will soon return ; and it concerns us to lay out well the brief hour of light. " I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day ; the night cometh when no man can work."
CHAPTEE V.
THE MOKNING-STAR.
It was " very early in the morning," while " it was yet dark/' that Jesus rose from the dead. Not the sun, but only the morning-star, shone upon his opening tomb. The shadows had not fled, the citizens of Jerusalem had not awoke. It was still night — the hour of sleep and of darkness, when he arose. Nor did his rising break the slumbers of the city.
So it shall be il very early in the morn- ing," when " it is yet dark/5 and when nought but the morning- star is shining, that Christ's body, the church, shall arise. Like him, his saints shall awake when the children of the nis:ht and darkness
60 THE MORKING-STAR.
are still sleeping their sleep of death. In their arising they disturb no one. The world hears not the voice that summons them, or if it hears, shall only say, " It thunders," as did the unbelieving Jews when the Father's voice responded to the prayer of Jesus. (John xii. 29.) As Jesus laid them quietly to rest, each in his own still tomb, like children in the arms of their mother ; so, as quietly, as gently, shall he awake them when the hour ar- rives.
He is the Morning-star. " I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning-star." (Rev. xxii. 16.) And this name is given to him not only because of the glory of his person and the brightness of his appearing, but because of the time when he is to appear.
The first act, at his appearing, when he comes in glory, — the first indication of his arrival, while yet aloft "in the air," is likened to the shining of the morning-star.
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Afterwards he shall come forth as " the Sun of righteousness/5 filling the whole earth with his brightness, and shadowing the nations with his healing wings (MaL iv. 2) ; but at first he shows himself as the Morning-star, — big with the hope of day,, yet not the day ; brighter than other stars and eclipsing all of them, yet not the Day- star; forerunner of the sun, yet not the sun; foreteller of the dawn, yet not the dawn.*
Hence his promise to the conqueror is, " I will give him the morning-star " (Rev* ii. 28) ; that is, I will give myself to him as the morning-star ; I will show myself to him as such; I will confer on him this pre-eminence, this special blessedness.
We read in Scripture of " the eye-lids of